Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #223 (7 page)

"We have buyers from three major Milan fashion houses coming to view 2307's skin this afternoon,” said De Santana nervously. “Initial conversations have been very encouraging."

"You are asking me to get a creature that doesn't know human speech to communicate with me in a fraction of the time it would take a human being to do the same,” said Mullen. “I'm sorry, it cannot be done."

"You must appreciate,” said Alencar, “pressure is imposed on us by the public nature of this situation."

"Then it's all the more important that this be done right! You need a proper longitudinal study!"

"The longer the study,” said Alencar, “the more the general public will have to debate what its findings will be, and the less saleable whatever product can be made of this creature becomes. No-one wants to wear an intelligent coat, not even an unintelligent fashion victim. The Commission feels it will be best to deliver a quick decision."

"The Commission is not going to get one. Not from me."

"You've been paid in advance,” said Alencar. “You also signed a contract. The contract continues for another two weeks. You will be breaking it if you leave, and breaking the law if you break the contract. It will then be my civic duty to inform my superiors that I have placed you under house arrest pending trial. While you are under arrest, of course, I will be duty bound to recoup public expenses by putting you to productive work.” She looked pointedly at the monitor.

"How long might I be under arrest for?” said Mullen.

"Our legal system is clogged with criminals awaiting trial for rain forest destruction. It could take weeks."

Mullen nodded. “That would be terrible."

Leonor, it seemed, was also the chambermaid. Mullen suspected the facility had not had the budget to hire more than one person. Outside the wire, outside the ring of troops, the country was starving. Pre-dustbowl tins of Fray Bentos ham were going for a billion
reais.
Since the emergency measures, staff in government offices had to be paid in government food stamps, more precious than gold, in addition to their worthless paper salaries. Food voucher trucks were hijacked more frequently than bullion wagons in Rio nowadays. Every government employee bled scarce food and cash resources from Commission coffers; over thirty such employees were standing outside the wire right now, holding back the crowd. No wonder Alencar wanted a speedy resolution to the situation.

She could hear the sound of the crowd even in here, in her room. Leonor, folding towels on the rail, noticed her concern.

"Half of the people outside are not political,” she said. “They just know there are living things in here they can eat."

Mullen hadn't thought of that. “They'd eat genetic experiments?"

Leonor shrugged, not looking up from her towels. “They are very hungry. Some of the Amazon tribes, they were
canibal
not too long ago. In Manaus, they say people who walk around at night in the
indiano
districts, they disappear. Doctor Mullen, everyone is very, very hungry. Judite is probably hungry now. She leave her job, no food stamps, no food for her family..."

"Judite,” said Mullen. “That was the name of the girl who left, then."

"Yes, and they never replace her.” Leonor straightened the bedspread grumpily. “I have to do two times as much work. And there is even one more bed to make, in here, because Judite is not here any more."

"This was Judite's room?"

"Oh yes. What other room will they use to put you in? This is the only spare room."

"Leaving a government job must have taken courage nowadays.” Mullen picked up the phone. “Do you think De Santana will be in his office?"

"I do not think he can be disturbed now, Doctor Mullen. He is busy with the
modistas."

Mullen, however, was no longer listening. She was staring down at the phone rest.

"Bastard,” she said. “You sneaky little
bastard."

Leonor looked up blankly. “What is Bastard?"

"I'll bloody disturb him,” muttered Mullen. “I'll disturb him into an early fucking
grave."

She ripped the phone clean out of the wall. There were sparks; bare wires protruded from the fitting. With huge pools of eyes, Leonor watched her stomp out of the bedroom, muttering vengeance.

"You worm! You
vermin
!” Mullen could hear another woman shrieking in what sounded like her own voice, only louder and more psychotic. De Santana had retreated behind his desk in fear. The
modistas -
three of whom appeared, weirdly, to be dressed head-to-foot in concentration camp uniforms, the rest of whom wore suits sharp enough to cut themselves—managed simultaneously to look up at Mullen whilst looking down at her.

"Get Miss Thing,” one of them said.

"Doctor Mullen,” said Alencar, “we are attempting to have a private discussion. Can this not wait?"

"She was deaf,” yelled Mullen at De Santana, “wasn't she?” She held up the telephone, wires still dangling from it.

"My word,” said another of the
modistas,
“it's going to phone us to death.” Mullen noticed that this
modista
had a number tattooed onto the inside of her wrist.

"There is a jack in the side of this for plugging into a hearing aid,” said Mullen. “The volume control on the phone speaker goes up so high I can hear it in the next room. There is an LED on the front of it that flashes when the phone rings. No other phones in this place look like this. This one has been specially bought for a deaf person. Hasn't it."

De Santana appealed to Alencar with his eyes. Alencar stared stonily back at the wainscoting.

"Yes,” shrugged De Santana angrily. “Yes, she was deaf. What has that to do with anything?"

"And you never thought it worthwhile to tell me that, while you were saying ‘she thought 2308 was
speaking
to her?’ You knew exactly what you were doing, you
turd
. You sent me deliberately down a blind alley for a week, you
wanker
—"

Alencar spoke without looking up, her face a dangerous mask of passivity. “We will discuss this matter later, Doctor Mullen. We are going to continue our conversation now, and I am putting you on your honour not to interrupt. I am assuming, furthermore, because of my imperfect knowledge of English, for which I apologize, that you used the word ‘wanker’ in a way which differs from the meaning I would normally assign to it."

Mullen felt her face reddening. She pointed at De Santana. “He deliberately withheld information from my research,” she stammered.

"We can produce over three hundred units a month,” said Alencar to the head
modista,
a blonde of indeterminable age with a face that was a palimpsest of plastic surgery. “After the initial set-up period."

"That will be satisfactory if you can tell me for certain what that set-up period will be. So far I have heard only vague promises."

Mullen turned and stormed out, slamming the door. She heard arch snickering behind her as she left.

In the staff lounge, Mullen was sitting staring into a glass of stomach-punishing rum-like liquor, which its label had described as
cachaça.
It had been the only bottle in the bar. Next to the
cachaça
bottle, the remains of three sheets of printed laboratory slides smouldered in an ashtray next to an almost empty bag of candied banana pieces. Behind the bar, Leonor was polishing the glassware till her cloth squeaked on the glass. In today's Brazil, public servants always did their jobs impeccably. Sheer unreasoning terror of removal of food supply did that to a person. Leonor had a flat-skulled Amerind face, a face suited to bearing baskets rather than wearing hats and looking important. Mullen had noticed more terror in such faces than in well-to-do white and latina ones.

"Your bird,” said Leonor. “He is still in the laboratory."

Mullen nodded, unable to speak for fury.

"I must tell you this,” said Leonor, “because sometimes the Experiments, they go through the bars and eat small animals. De Santana, he has a small dog once. One of the very small dogs, a toy poodle. It went
yap, yap, yap
, so loud, and suddenly, Josefina pounce, and it does not go
yap, yap, yap
."

Curiously, this made Mullen feel better. “Josefina?"

"Josefina is what Judite call Experiment 2308. Josefina because she is a girl, you know?"

"And Joseph because of the Coat of Many Colours, I suppose. You don't need to worry. Polymath is smarter than that. He's a very smart bird."

The intercom on the wall, connected to the laboratory, shrieked in Polymath's voice: “
TRINTA E TRÊS
."

"He is smarter than I,” said Leonor. “I cannot do much, even simple math, I have what is it called in English, the dyscalculia? I could not go to the
Ensino Médio.
And so I end up polishing glasses.” She grinned with terrible teeth.

"Dyscalculia doesn't mean you're stupid, Leonor. It's a medical condition."

"But you have prove Polymath is intelligent because he can do simple math,” said Leonor, smiling. “That means I am less intelligent than a parrot, yes? I have heard what happen with Doctor De Santana and the counting, was very funny."

"
TRINTA E SETE
."

"I didn't prove Polymath was intelligent, Leonor. When I said that I was joking. If Polymath were intelligent and you were stupid, he'd be polishing the glasses and you'd be sitting on a perch whistling the Australian National Anthem and messing the floor where you wanted."

"
QUATRO
."

"I am not so sure he have the bad end of the deal,” said Leonor, looking at the stack of dirty glassware sadly.

"
QUATRO VEZES TRINTA E SETE SÃO CEM E QUARENTA E OITO
."

Mullen looked up suddenly. “That's my parrot. My parrot is speaking Portuguese."

"Yes,” said Leonor. “He is doing multiplication. You must be very proud."

"I bought him in Cabinda,” said Mullen. “But I had no idea he spoke Portuguese.” She dialled up the volume on the baby alarm.

"
VIVA O MOVIMENTO POPULAR DE LIBERTAÇÃO DE ANGOLA
,” chattered Polymath.

"I don't understand this,” said Mullen. “He's not supposed to be able to do multiplication either."

Carefully, not wishing to interrupt, she crept into the corridor, stole up to the laboratory door, and peered through the crack between door and jamb.

Polymath was sitting on his perch, his wings fully extended as they always were when he was overtired. Facing him, in the cage, was 2308, who had altered herself, as exactly as possible, to Polymath's colouration. Her skin was covered in red raised warts. Abruptly all the warts disappeared, leaving only two large ones centred around what Mullen now decided to formally christen the parietal eye.

"
DOIS
,” squawked Polymath.

The dots separated like cells dividing, making—

"
TRÊS
,” shrieked Polymath.

The three dots spawned a fourth and fifth simultaneously.

"
CINCO
!” screeched Polymath. Two more of the dots split apart. “
SETE
!"

"Your parrot, he is a very clever bird,” said Leonor from behind her, “but the Experiment cannot count very well. She has missed out four and six."

"The Experiment can count very well indeed,” said Mullen. “Those are the first four prime numbers."

"
ONZE
!” trilled Polymath.

Mullen turned to Leonor. “Go fetch Captain Alencar."

"But the Captain is busy, and she is
Comissão -"

"Tell her I threatened you with violence! Go!"

By now, even Polymath was having to train his beady eye on 2308's microdotted hide for long seconds before feeling able to yell out:

"
CEM E TREZE
!"

Alencar stood behind Polymath, arms folded, unmoving as an obsidian statue. Behind her were De Santana and the
modistas
, who, apparently unaccustomed to having to stand for periods longer than a few seconds, were watching with arms folded in gently escalating rage.

"
CEM E VINTE E SETE
!"

Leonor looked up from the pocket calculator, her face flushed with delight. “It is prime! Again she has done it!"

"This could be pure coincidence,” said De Santana. “Prime numbers appear a great deal in nature. The Experiment is probably only trying to intrigue the parrot sufficiently for it to stray too close to the bars, where it will be eaten."

"Who cares what her motivations are? This creature is doing to us, spontaneously and without any mathematical education, exactly what Carl Sagan suggested as a means of communicating with extraterrestrial life. What more does she have to do to prove she's intelligent?"

"Tool use,” said De Santana. “Animals don't use tools."

"She has no grasping appendages,” said Mullen. “Neither do dolphins, which have a language set of thirty-odd separate sounds. But magpies, chimpanzees and sea otters, none of which are mathematical geniuses, have all been observed to use tools."

"But do they use tools to make
other
tools,” said De Santana.

"What would happen if I
could
get her to use tools to make other tools? Would you raise the bar even higher? Would you want her to construct a personal online shopping gateway to buy herself some tools she can use to make other tools? How about if she outsourced her requirement to use tools to make other tools to China? Would that make her intelligent? Let's be candid and admit the only criterion for intelligence you'll be satisfied with is one whereby you don't feel any need to make a handbag out of her, isn't that right?"

"Now you're getting emotional,” said De Santana.

A painfully thin member of the buying entourage clapped his hands together like a saint in prayer.

"This is
so positive
! If this creature feels pain like a common consumer, skinning it will send our popularity ratings through the
floor
!"

Mullen blinked. “I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

The praying hands separated and raised towards heaven. “Hate is the way to go, girlfriend! We creatives realized years ago that convincing Jill Public a product was the very next
dernier cri
was like trying to erase cellulite which, trust me, cannot be done. Far easier to simply make the public hate the product so much that they remember its name. Today's consumer is educated, she knows the advertising bears absolutely no relation to the product itself. Nazi chic sold in ‘76; gangsta bling in ‘96; the
nouvelle vague taleban
in ‘16. Did you think we write those irritating jingles you can't get out of your head just because we're too incompetent for words?"